Visualizations : Candidate Expenditure Matrix

Romney spends a large amount on Media/Polling/Voter Contact, in both absolute and comparative terms.

Here’s another view that lets you compare proportions.

Here I’ve switched rows, columns and highlighted the biggest spenders in each category.

Romney: biggest spender in consulting & media.
Obama: biggest in salaries, travel, administration.
McCain: biggest in payroll.
Clinton: biggest in events.

Someone pointed out to me that Clinton pays almost no payroll taxes and benefits, compared to the others—even though the amount she spends on salaries is reasonably high. Why would this be?

Wow, this is slick as heck! I really like this visualization. To answer the question about Clinton and payroll taxes… Again, it’s a reporting problem. The FEC does not require candidates to report salaries any particular way, so, some of them break out payroll taxes and benefits as a separate line item, and others don’t. Actually, come to think of it I think Clinton is the only one that doesn’t, but I could be wrong. So, the best way to look at payroll is actually to combine salaries and taxes/benefits. That’s the best apples-to-apples. I had them broken out because certain reporters wanted to look at certain candidates and find out who is making what in before-tax income. In truth, I probably should have combined those fields for this visualization… a very good point there.